Monday, October 8, 2012

One quarter million Scots-Irish settled in America during the 1700's. Many
of them gravitated to the Appalachian region, which stretched from Mississippi
to New York.

One of these Scots-Irish families would have been the Halperts, who settled
in that area of Appalachia which ran through North Carolina.

Elmo Halpert was born in the western area of North Carolina at the turn of
the 20th Century. He was a pharmacist with his own business in Greenwood (not
far from the Greenwood City Hall.)

I don't know how many children Elmo had, but I believe one of them to have
been Duncan Halpert, who was born around 1920. Growing up during the Great
Depression, Duncan left Greenwood and moved north once he came of age in order
to find work. He eventually settled in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he fell in
love with a local girl and married her. In 1941, they had a son, whom they
named Gerald.

Several months later, America was at war and Duncan Halpert enlisted in the
army. He was stationed at Fort Bragg, not far from where he grew up in Greenwood. So his wife and son left Scranton,
Pennsylvania, and moved in with Elmo Halpert and his wife in order to be closer to Duncan while he was still in the States. It
couldn't have been an easy transition since her father-in-law Elmo was a bit
cantankerous. And if he had any other children, they all left the area as
well.

Duncan Halpert made the Army his career and remained stationed at Fort
Bragg after World War II. He and his family moved into their own residence near the base, which
was a great relief to his wife, finally getting free from living with
Elmo.

When the Korean Conflict flared, Captain Duncan Halpert was shipped to
Seoul and soon found himself in command of a unit near the front lines. He was
wounded in a skirmish and medevaced to the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital #4077,
but unfortunately he died on the operating table. (A Major Frank Burns was the
surgeon and he claimed it wasn't his fault.)

Distraught, Duncan's wife moved back to Scranton, Pennsylvania, with her
son Gerald. Elmo remained in Greenwood, North Carolina, until his wife died in
the mid-1960's. He then sold his pharmacy and moved east to Mayberry, probably
to avoid the memories of his late wife and son.

In Mayberry, Elmo bought one of the town's two pharmacies, probably the one
previously owned by Fred Walker and staffed by his niece Ellie May Walker. (The
other pharmacy was Crawford's Drugs, run by Mr. and Mrs. Crawford. She remarried
after her husband died, and Mrs. Mason kept the pharmacy going under its old
name.)

Elmo Halpert lived out the rest of his days in Mayberry, North Carolina,
only seeing his daughter-in-law and his grandson on rare occasions. (Certainly
never while we saw Elmo on screen!) He died at the age of 77, one year before
the birth of his great-grandson, James Duncan Halpert.....

Once he was an adult, Gerald Halpert met a local girl named Betsy (last
name unknown) and married her. They had four children together - Thomas, James,
Peter, and Larisa. Larisa could have been a family name from Betsy's side,
perhaps with a Greek origin - either she was named after a figure in Greek
mythology or for the town in the Thessaly region where Betsy's family may have
come from. Again, not much is known about Betsy's family tree.

Gerald was definitely proud of his own Scottish ancestry and trumpeted that
fact at any official family gatherings by wearing a kilt.

James Duncan "Jim" Halpert was born on October 1, 1978, a year after the
death of his great-grandfather, Elmo Halpert. He grew up in Scranton, as the middle son - younger than Tom, but older than Pete. (Larisa was the baby of the family.)

Jim became the assistant office manager of the local branch of the Dunder-Mifflin
Paper Company. While there, he fell in love with the office receptionist, Pam
Beesley, and eventually married her. They have two children, Cecelia Marie and
Philip.

And that's where things stand in the Halpert family tree, from Elmo Halpert
to Jim Halpert. (At least as far as Toobworld Central is concerned.) Many of the
details, including the life of Duncan Halpert especially, were pure conjecture.
If you know of any details in the life of Jim Halpert's grandfather, I hope
you'll write in and share them.

This theory of "relateeveety" was in response to a challenge issued by my
blogging buddy Ivan from "The Thrilling Days Of Yesteryear". He covers old-time
radio, classic movies and serials, as well as old TV. I'd like to suggest you
check in at his site (Link to the left, members of the Regal Order of the Golden
Door to Good Fellowship!) on Mondays to read his latest recap of episodes from
'Mayberry RFD'. It was in one of the most recent posts on this topic in which
Ivan issued his challenge to flesh out the link between 'Mayberry RFD' and 'The
Office'.

Just An Old Cowhand On The TiVo Grande

As the Trickster once said, "Reality is boring, that's why I change it whenever I can."
I'm just "The Man Who Viewed Too Much", and "Inner Toob" is a blog exploring and celebrating the 'reality' of an alternate universe in which everything that ever happened on TV actually takes place.
Most of my theories about the TV Universe come from thinking inside the box and thus can't be proven. But I've never been one to shy away from a tall tale.....
Remember: "The more you watch, the more you've seen!"